Watermark’s Lead On Conference for Women

Watermark’s Lead On Conference for Women, keynote speaker – Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and The Wright Place TV Show was there.

Watermark’s Lead On Conference for Women occurred February 24, 2015 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, California. Watermark is a community of executive women in the San Francisco Bay Area, whose mission is to increase the representation of women at executive levels to drive innovation, human development and economic growth.

The Wright Place TV Show was there to capture the powerful remarks of Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and others. The video footage of her speech will be fully aired on the new season of the WPTV. By sharing these choice nuggets of inspiration and wisdom from the experience, the hope is to leave you with the “winning” energy her presentation transmitted.

At the First Watermark Silicon Valley Conference for Women, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said gender equality is “not just a nice thing to do. Where women are included you are more likely to have democracy.” Clinton went on to say that equality for women is necessary to ensure a country’s economic and political stability, she said, according to live tweeted accounts of her speech.Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is widely considered to be a front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination despite having yet to declare a bid in the race. Her keynote address focused on the professional development and leadership of women. Clinton said she could “literally count on one hand the number of women who have come [to Silicon Valley] and turned their dreams into billion dollar businesses,” but that “we cannot afford to leave all that talent on the sidelines.”

“We’re going backwards in a field that is supposed to be all about moving forward,” Clinton said, citing the fact that women now receive only 18 percent of computer science degrees, whereas in the 1980s women took home 38 percent of those degrees. “Our economy seems to be operating like it’s 1955.”

Gender equality in pay, education and leadership figured prominently in Clinton’s speech. She said that women need to take the lead and help other women, but that doesn’t necessarily mean doing something big and dramatic. “You don’t have to run for office… but if you do, more power to you,” the former Secretary of State, said.Following the speech, Kara Swisher, co-executive editor of the tech website Re/code, sat down with Clinton for an interview. Swisher quickly got to the question on minds all around the world: Will Clinton run for president? “I am talking to a lot of people,” Clinton said. “There are a lot of things I would love to see our country do.” But as for why she has yet to declare, Clinton said she hasn’t finished checking things off her list. “All in good time,” she said.

During the interview, Clinton talked about the progress she would like to see on issues like equal pay and family leave and revisited the topic of women in tech, likening the industry to “a Wild West environment.” When asked whether having a female president would make a difference, she said women taking seats in the Senate over the last several decades has already had an impact.

When Swisher asked, if you could wave a wand, “what one thing would you change in this country?” “Our mindsets. Our political bunkers. We’ve come so far on race, sexism and homophobia. Nobody wants to associate with someone who doesn’t agree with them politically. They [are forced to] listen to different media. You cannot run a great country like that.”Ina Fried, live-blogging the event for the online magazine Re/code, summed up Clinton’s speech as focusing on women in tech rather than addressing policy topics like security or net neutrality. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton left the stage with the confident and vibrant charismatic smile that is her signature. The First Watermark Silicon Valley Conference for Women showered her contribution with loud praise.